By Frank Jack Daniel
CARACAS (Reuters) - The popularity of Venezuela's anti-American President Hugo Chavez has wavered over food shortages and crime but may be boosted by a legal battle with Exxon Mobil over compensation for a nationalized oil project.
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"This will probably rally his support, especially among segments of the population that have been Chavista (Chavez backers) but have recently been questioning the direction things are going in the country," said Daniel Hellinger, a political scientist at St. Louis, Missouri-based Webster University.
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On his weekly television show on Sunday, Chavez called Exxon "imperial, American bandits," before threatening to cut oil supplies to the United States.
A government news channel repeated clips of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, overlaid with animated scenes of drops of oil turning into blood.
Exxon, which reported the highest-ever operating profit by a U.S. company last quarter, began extracting oil from Venezuela in the early 20th century. So it is an easy target for Chavez, who increased government control over several oil projects in 2007.
"It is not popular among the masses for a transnational company to freeze the nation's resources," said Luis Vicente Leon of polling company Datanalisis.
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